35 years sailing experience
Calm under pressure
Available year round
Captain or crew
U.S. Coast Guard license: #1187567
I am a lifelong sailor...
...and have terrific experience in many waters. The wind and water are in my blood... and I am probably more comfortable at sea than I am on land.
I began sailing as a child in the 1960's, on freshwater lakes in Maryland and Virginia in my trusted Sunfish. As I entered my teen years, I graduated to bigger waters: the Chesapeake and Penobscot Bays, and the Atlantic of coastal Florida, (where I sail-surfed waves well before 'windsurfing' was realized).
As my love for wind and water grew, I sailed with my mom after school and on weekends on her Columbia 22 all around Baltimore's waterways.
Summers in Bayside Maine brought me even closer to my growing passion. There I deepened in myself an intuitive, 'felt' understanding of the winds and currents and waves. Friends and I would sail every day, all day, for these three months. And it was here in Maine that this lifelong love of sailing evolved into a lifelong profession as well.
In my mid-teens I began teaching the Junior Sailing program at Northport Yacht Club. A second job had me helping customers of the ChanceAlong Inn in Belfast with afternoon sails. And it was here that the racing bug bit me. At fifteen, I qualified for the regional Catyak races in Ohio. For the most part, though, weekly racing in western Penobscot Bay on a variety of boats kept me satisfied.
As family sailboats became larger (Dufour 27, Contest 33), I often helped my mom sail from Maryland to Maine and back again each year. In the summer of 1980 I launched my delivery work as one-man crew on a Swan 65. A twenty-five hour sail then brought us from Camden Maine to Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. And a full sweep of conditions on that trip really cemented my predilection for unplanned adventure, alongside competence, in getting any delivery job done. There we were, going through Woods Hole at 3:30 in the morning, horizontal rain, fog and near zero visibility, me at the helm listening to coordinates and new headings yelled out by the captain from below —not to mention a dozen fishing boats chugging around us through some radical currents— and I'm hooked! Delivering boats was a good part of what I saw myself doing from that point on.
The 1990's found me living aboard my Sparkman & Stevens 35 with my soon-to-be-wife. It was en route from Annapolis to Miami one winter, as we weathered a near-hurricane gale on the Chesapeake (which sadly brought many boats down), that my wife says she made the decision to marry me. My calm amidst crisis conditions that day soothed her, saved our boat, and sealed our marriage!
In subsequent years I mixed charter and delivery work, lesson-teaching and racing, on boats owned by clients as well as on my own. My 'Simplicity', a C & C 27, soon begins travel from Maine down to the Caribbean islands. When not in other waters and on other boats for delivery and week-long charter work, I take her out for chartered day and weekend sails in these spectacular waters.
I feel lucky to be based here, in these spectacular waters... and equally lucky to travel to other waters and other boats to captain them for others.
Though specializing in East Coast and Caribbean deliveries and charters, I am able and ready to deliver your boat safely anywhere worldwide: from the US and Canadian Eastern seaboard on through the Caribbean; through the Gulf of Mexico and Central America; to South America or through the Panama Canal; the Atlantic to Europe and the Mediterranean; along the Pacific, West Coast of the Americas and Canada; Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia; and on any inland waters.
Besides ability and expertise, I should mention a human quality I value highly and which I offer you, as your captain: integrity. Thoroughness, honesty, and respect for people and for their valued possessions are all part of this. And finally, you might say I am obsessed with cleanliness; you can bet that meticulous care will be shown to every boat in my charge.